The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing But
by dragonwriter24cmf
Summary: Chloe sees Lucifer's devil face. Two weeks later, she's determined to find out the truth. The whole truth. But if she wants answers, she's going to have to accept a lot of things. Her own origins. Lucifer's true identity. And the consequences that come with teaching the Devil how to love...


**The Truth the Whole Truth, And Nothing But…**

Chloe Decker stared up at the Lux, fiddling with her car keys as she worked up the courage to enter. The club was quiet, closed for the day. Trixie was with a friend, enjoying a slumber party. No distractions. Except for her memories, and those…

Chloe bit her lip, recalling the events of two weeks ago. Confronting Pierce, her former lover and, in theory, the original Cain. Getting shot. And then...and then there had been a period of confusion, and she'd regained her senses to find herself sitting on the roof. She'd come downstairs to find a scene of carnage, with Lucifer and Pierce, or rather Pierce's body, at the center. She'd recognized the knife in Pierce's chest as the one he'd been holding during their confrontation, a knife oddly similar to Maze's favorite weapons. And then, she'd seen Lucifer.

That face...nothing of the suave and cool bar owner she knew. Red and black skin, like someone had grafted a third degree burn victim's skin over a living face and lacquered it smooth, almost. Red eyes in a demonic visage. And yet, Lucifer's clothes and Lucifer's voice.

In that moment, she'd known it was true. He _was_ The Devil. The original fallen angel, the Lord of Hell. Mankind's worst nightmare, the Punisher, the Prince of Darkness.

She'd fled. Run from him. She'd pulled away. Cited conflict of interests and personal involvement to avoid dealing with his statement, or the crime scene, or anything to do with that day. But hiding from Lucifer didn't erase her memories. Or her questions. Questions to which only he had the answers.

She looked up at the club again, then higher, to the floor she knew housed Lucifer's rooms, his home, in so much as he claimed to have one. She knew the club would be closed, but the doors would be open. She'd learned long ago that Lucifer had a rather liberal open door policy.

She took a deep breath, steeling her nerves, then strode across the street and into the main entrance of the club.

"We're closed." A familiar voice made her stop short.

"Maze." She swallowed. She hadn't seen the other woman in a while. But come to think of it, hadn't Maze said she had followed Lucifer from Hell?

"What do you want?" The sharp question snapped her out of her thoughts. Maze's tone was harsh, her expression reminiscent of when they'd first met, rather than the almost friendly and casual woman she'd gotten to know.

Chloe swallowed. "I'm here to see Lucifer."

"Are you now." The question was flat, and the tone made Chloe feel like she'd been slapped. Or caught doing something infinitely more embarrassing than her 'Hot Tub High School' days.

Still, she wasn't a cop for nothing. "Yes."

"Why?"

Chloe swallowed. "I need to talk to him."

"Why?" Maze leaned back. A knife flicked into her hand from some place Chloe couldn't quite see. "From what I heard, you weren't that interested in talking."

Chloe swallowed again. "What did he tell you?"

"Not much. But you get a few things from drunken ramblings." Maze looked at her nails, flicking the knife open to pick at something under them that Chloe couldn't see and was pretty sure didn't exist.

Drunken ramblings. Lucifer was a drinker, but not an alcoholic, and drunk...it took a lot to get Lucifer drunk. "He's been drinking?"

"Practically non-stop for the last two weeks. He hasn't come to the club. He hasn't attended to business or done anyone any favors. I've had to restock his private liquor stash four times." Maze leveled a cold look at her. "And something tells me that you already know why."

Chloe gulped. "I saw him."

"You've seen him any number of times." Maze rose in a single, fluid motion. Chloe had always passed it off as being graceful, like a dancer, but now it seemed almost inhuman. "Even naked, I believe."

"Not like that. I saw...him. Not the charming club owner face he always wears. Him...for real."

"So?" Maze moved closer.

"I...I need to talk to him. I need...I need to know the truth. About what happened that day, about him, about...us." She could barely process the last word, but it was true. For all the shock of seeing the demon under the human face, she still believed there was an 'us'.

"The truth. Lucifer never has refused you the truth. But tell me something. Are you asking for the truth so you can deny it all and twist it to make sense in your little human worldview? Or are you asking because you want to know? Because you're willing to know him, all of him, as he truly is?"

Chloe swallowed the first answer on the tip of her tongue at the look in the other woman's eyes. This wasn't Maze Smith, former room-mate, sometimes friend and sometimes confidant asking her these questions. This was Mazikeen, the demon who had followed Lucifer from Hell, served as his right hand and his trusted companion until she had come between them.

Maze kept speaking. "Lucifer doesn't lie. Oh, he hides things, obscures the truth, dances the fine line...but he doesn't lie." Her eyes were hard. "Especially not to you."

"I know." And she did know. She'd always thought Lucifer was just a delusional, if mostly harmless, man with hypnotic skills that most people fell for and she was fortunate to be immune to. Plus drug induced strength and a knack for special effects, like a stage magician. "I promise, I'll listen to him this time."

Maze studied her face. It felt like the other woman was looking into her soul. Chloe forced herself not to duck away. For all she knew, Maze _was_ looking at her soul, and she didn't want to be judged a coward.

Finally, Maze heaved a sigh, flicked the knife closed and back into whatever space she'd pulled it from, and turned. "Come with me."

She led Chloe to the elevator, but snapped an arm up before she could enter. "Listen carefully. I'll get you in. But convincing him to let you stay is your problem. And if you break him any further..." Her expression darkened, and a flash of something other, something demonic, crossed her features. "I'll show you why I was his favorite, down in Hell."

Chloe swallowed. "I understand."

"Good." Maze opened the elevator and let her in.

The ride up was silent. When the door opened, Maze engaged the brake and gestured for her to stay back. Chloe nodded, lingering in the doorway instead of following.

"Not taking visitors." A familiar, if somewhat slurred, voice emerged from the shrouded darkness of the suite.

"It's me." Maze's voice was quiet. "I've brought you something."

"About time. Drink's running out again. Or did you bring drugs this time?"

"Neither. I'm cutting you off for the moment."

"Mazikeen..." The velvety smooth voice went hard. "Don't presume..."

"Deal with this, and I'll bring more. If you still want them."

"Fine. So...what is it? Someone skip their tab? Another look-alike upstart? Someone need a favor and won't take no for an answer? Come on now, do hurry up, I'd like to get back to my drinking some time this week."

Chloe took that as her cue. She stepped forward, into the light cast by the bar. "Hey."

Silhouetted by the light from the windows, Lucifer looked awful. His clothes were rumpled, shirt half unbuttoned and there was no jacket or vest anywhere in sight. His pants were creased, he had the beginning of some serious stubble on his jaw. His eyes were bloodshot and his hair was a mess. He looked like he'd frozen at the sound of her voice.

For a moment they stood, both frozen into immobility. Then Lucifer whipped around to face Maze, his expression clouding with fury, with pain. "What is the meaning of this?"

"She came in and asked to talk to you. I brought her up, and I suggest you hear her out. That's it." Maze shrugged. "What happens after that...it's your concern more than mine."

Without another word, she turned and strode past Chloe, into the elevator. The doors closed behind her with a distinctive 'ping', leaving the two of them alone.

Chloe wasn't sure how to break the heavy silence that followed Maze's departure. Inane greetings and small talk wouldn't cut it, and she didn't want him to feel like she was interrogating him. She didn't know how to start the conversation she felt they needed to have without making things worse.

Lucifer apparently had no such problem. A sharp, menacing smile slid across his face as he leaned against his piano. "So then, Detective, what brings you to my humble abode? Case you need to solve? Criminals not talking? Need a favor? Come now, do speak up. I haven't got all day." He tilted his head, cruelty sliding across the narrow features like another mask. "Well, I do actually, but you...you're mortal. With a spawn and a job and everything. Busy, I imagine, doing all those things that you humans do."

If she'd still thought he was lying about his identity, the words would have annoyed her. If she hadn't known him well enough to see the hurt behind the sharpness of his smile, she'd have been hurt herself. But underneath the veneer of rage and cruelty and madness was a vulnerable man. A man that only she and Dr. Linda Martin and Maze had ever been allowed to see. And perhaps the odd man he called brother. Amenadiel, though he went by another name, a name she couldn't quite recall.

Instead of responding, she moved closer, until she was close enough to touch him. She was surprised he let her, but then, that was Lucifer. Unwilling to show weakness unless it was unavoidable.

She reached up to press her hand lightly against his stubbled jaw. She felt him shudder, felt the twitch as he forced himself not to jerk away from her touch.

She traced her hand over his jaw, then up and across his brow, feeling smooth skin and rough hair. Feeling the creases of his mouth and the tension in his jaw. The warmth of him.

She stopped her exploration at the point of his jaw, where she could feel the pulse hammering in his throat, but exerted no pressure on it. "This is real, isn't it?"

"Of course it is." His voice was rough. "Why shouldn't it be?"

She swallowed. "And the other one...that was real too?"

He had begun to relax under her touch, but he went stiff at the question. "Yes."

Her first thought was to say 'I don't understand'. But it felt wrong. Instead, she settled for a far simpler question. "Why?"

She felt the shudder that went through him. "Because punishment requires a monster, Detective. And temptation requires a pretty face. Angelic, if you will."

She nodded. "And you're the Devil. You punish people who do bad things, and you draw out hidden desires." He'd told her that so often. From the very first time she'd met him, he'd told her that. She remembered one of their first conversations, and mustered a smile. "Desire...it's like your superpower."

The words had the desired effect. He relaxed. "More like a gift from God, really."

The vicious rage and cruelty faded from his expression, leaving behind only vulnerability. Raw and open, like a wound that only she could heal. Or tear apart, to bleed out.

She took a deep breath. "I believe you. It's just...there's so much I don't understand."

"You only ever had to ask, Detective."

"Chloe." She took a deep breath. "Okay. So...you're the Devil. The actual...fallen angel and Prince of Darkness, guy who runs Hell."

"Yes. Well, retired ruler now."

"You can draw out hidden desires, and you punish people who are guilty of sins."

"Major sins only, Detective. Little sins are all on you people. I don't make you do things. And the only sins I punish are the ones who truly deserve it."

"Like murderers. Or..." She remembered a few more of their cases. "People who toy with other people's hearts. People who hurt other people. The sins that destroy lives."

"Quite." He paused. "Although, full truth be told, I don't really do that much. People are so very good at punishing themselves, you know. In Hell, I mean. Things tend to catch up with them there, as it were. Guilty feelings and all that. I just sort of...oversee the process. Well, I did. And now that I'm here, I help you catch the ones with no remorse, so there's that too."

She took anther deep breath, forcing herself to accept it. To ignore the part of her mind that was screaming that the things he was saying couldn't be true. Couldn't be real. That he was crazy, deranged, and it was only luck that he'd never killed someone who wasn't guilty.

But she'd never seen him hurt an innocent. If anything, he could be viciously protective. She'd seen that in him. She still remembered their first meeting, the cold rage he'd revealed over Delilah's murder. And that wasn't the only time. Ty, the priest, among others.

No, she could accept that he was a Punisher of the guilty, and that he could draw truth, and desire, out of others. And that it wasn't derangement or hypnosis, but a gift, a power he'd been granted.

She still had other questions. "Okay...you're the Devil. The real Lucifer Morningstar. What I don't get..." She stopped, unsure how to word the question.

Lucifer remained quiet, an unusual state for him. She looked at his face. Then his hands. "You don't lie, but...I've seen you bleed. When I shot you...other times. If you're an angel...or the Devil..."

Something painful twisted his face. Anguish and ache. "Ah yes. The whole vulnerability and mortality question. How _could_ the Devil himself bleed, or die?"

"Yeah."

Lucifer stepped around her, to the bar, where he poured himself a drink. "Interesting conundrum, it really is. Took me forever to find the answer. But then, you may recall." Dark eyes met hers.

She nodded. "You said I was your mystery. Immune to your powers."

"Quite right. And then there was the little matter of making me vulnerable. At first I thought it was a side effect of being amongst humans in general, but then I discovered that it only applied to you."

That surprised her. "Why me?"

"I wondered that too." He sipped his drink. "Tell me, mummy dearest ever mention having trouble with childbirth?"

The question threw her. Still, she searched her memories. "Not my mother. But my father...I remember him telling me that I was their little miracle."

"I'll wager he didn't know how right he was." Lucifer reached below the counter and pulled out a photo, aged and yellowing. "Maze found this for me, in a bar in the city." He handed it to her.

The picture was old, but she recognized the woman. "That's my mother. And that's..." She frowned. "Is that..."

"My brother. Amenadiel. Yes."

She looked up at him. "Why would your brother and my mother..."

"I wondered that too. As it happens…well, every so often, dear old Dad will send one of my brothers with a blessing. Never really explains why, of course. Not big on explanations, my Father. The night this was taken, He sent Amenadiel on a mission. Not an ordinary mission for my brother. But, long and short of it, he sent Amenadiel to bless a barren couple with child. 36 years ago."

The world seemed to freeze for a moment. "I'm..."

"Yes. Amenadiel ensured your existence on Father's orders. Congratulations, Detective. You truly are a blessed child. As is your daughter, I suppose." Lucifer sipped his drink, a predatory smile touching his features. "Fun fact, Detective. Angels and demons, even the Devil himself...we're vulnerable to others of our kind. Humans can't hurt us, but those things and entities that possess origins of the divine or the demonic...well, different story I'm afraid. Of course, it's a bit different with you."

"Different...how so?"

Lucifer smirked. Or it would have been a smirk, if it hadn't been for the raw bitterness in his eyes. "Well, you've got a touch of the divine, so you _can _hurt me. Or others like me. But you're human, so unlike Maze or myself, you can't control it. It just...it simply is. Now, until the first time you wounded me, in that silly little factory, it didn't matter. But once you shot me...well, that touch of divinity, spilling into the world around you...it's like a fog. And when the fog touches me, I'm as mortal as you are. Because you made it so."

Memory asserted itself. When she and Lucifer had confronted Jimmy Barnes. She'd wondered how he'd survived being shot six times. Bulletproof vest had been her best guess, though she'd never seen him wear one. Later, Amenadiel had convinced her it was a stage magicians trick and she'd put it out of her mind. Especially after she'd shot him in the leg and he'd crumpled and bled.

She felt like she had when she'd been shot by Pierce. Like all the wind had been knocked from her lungs. "Oh, God..."

"Yes, we've established that." Lucifer's tone was sardonic.

Her eyes went to his leg. "If I hadn't...If I hadn't shot you...you wouldn't be…"

"If you hadn't shot me, I'd be immortal and invulnerable, to everything except my siblings and my subordinates, yes."

All the times he'd been wounded. When he'd been killed by Malcolm. All the injuries and pain he'd endured working with her. "You...it's my fault..."

"No." Lucifer's voice went sharp. He set his glass down with a harsh clink, then moved to stand in front of her, tilting her chin up so she was forced to meet his eyes. "My condition may be your doing, detective, but it is most assuredly _not_ your fault. I chose this. Mortality, pain, vulnerability. I chose to leave Hell. I chose to live here. I chose to become your partner. And rest assured, Detective, I did so knowing the risks." He paused again, cocking his head to the side in that thoughtful way he had.. "Maybe not the vulnerability at first. But after you shot me, I was quite aware of that little pitfall."

"Why..."

"Because it was what I wanted." His voice was level, but under the words was something different. Something unspoken but visible, there in his face. _Because I cared for you. You were what I wanted._

She wanted to hear the words spoken. At the same time, she didn't. Didn't want to force them from him, not with the tangles of pain and love and grief and fear and who knew what else between them. "Lucifer..."

"Detective..." He paused. "Chloe...rest assured. What I have done, I have done because it was my choice. It is in no way your fault."

"But...you could die." Her hand found the place where he'd been shot by Malcolm. "What...what happens if you…."

"I return to Hell. Or not, I suppose, depending on my Father's whims. Bit changeable, dear old Dad is. Except when he isn't, of course."

That made no sense. Chloe swallowed. "I don't understand. What do you mean?"

Lucifer froze for a moment. Then he sighed. "Do you recall, the first time you saw me naked?"

She did remember. She'd been mortified by his brazen behavior. And by the tiny little thrill of lust that she'd experienced, looking at those well defined muscles, the tanned skin, and his...equipment. She hadn't been sure whether to be mortally embarrassed, or annoyed.

And then he'd turned, and she'd seen his back. The two scars, a foot long and at least three inches wide at the widest point. Then she'd been horrified by the wounds, the indication of brutality.

He told her he'd had Maze cut his wings off. She hadn't believed him, latching on to his earlier statement that it was his father's fault.

It was the first time she'd seen him truly vulnerable, seen the pain that lurked underneath the sarcastic surface. When she'd gone to touch his scars and he'd whipped around to seize her wrist in an iron grip. She could still hear the way his voice had wavered when he spoke. _'Don't. Please.'_

He was still waiting for an answer. Chloe forced herself away from the memory and nodded. "I remember. Your back..."

"Yes. That. Well, I haven't shown you yet, but you should know..."

He stepped back, putting distance between them. "Dad seems to have his own opinions about my little rebellion. Or redemption, I suppose, if you believe my brother."

His shoulders shifted, his posture changing in a subtle shift of weight.

From his back, wings unfolded from nothingness, curling up over his shoulders before spreading wide. Huge wings, wings that could not possibly have been there a moment ago, opening to what had to be nearly a 20 foot span.

Breathing was suddenly difficult. "You...you have..."

"Wings. Father gave them back. Part of that whole lost in the desert business. Tried to get rid of them, but it seems he wasn't having that, not this time. Cut them off, they just regrow. But, they do come in handy at times. Flying, fighting...remarkably versatile, they are."

The shock was beginning to ease, and it was then that she noticed discoloration among the white feathers. Discoloration that looked like…

She stepped forward, hand on the nearest wing before he could react. She felt Lucifer shudder and jerk, but he didn't pull away.

Rust colored stains marred the gleaming white. Chloe reached out to touch one, and felt the brittle, rough surface of a scab, even as Lucifer made a pained sound. "Chloe..."

She met his eyes, seeing undisguised agony in them. "Your wings are hurt."

"Yes." He didn't deny it, didn't pull back, though she expected him to.

"How?" She was afraid of the answer, but she needed to know. What could damage an angel's wings? His wings?

The wings pulled away, curling around their owner in a defensive gesture. Then Lucifer stretched out a hand, tugging her to him, into the protective embrace of his arms and his wings. "When Pierce shot you."

She remembered when she'd revisited the crime scene. The signs of gunfire, a rain of bullets. She remembered how surprised she'd been, that either of them had survived it. Pierce's bullet had been stopped by a bulletproof vest she was wearing, but they both should have been dead with the number of rounds that had apparently been fired.

She'd also wondered how Lucifer had gotten both of them up to the roof, why the windows _behind_ Pierce's original position had broken inwards.

The answer to the last two questions was obvious now. Wings. Presumably, Lucifer could fly with them, given they were pointless otherwise.

But the bullet-storm...She started to ask, then stopped.

She looked at the wings, curled around both of them. Looked at the lines of the wounds in the feathers. Placed them in the mental map of the crime scene that she'd build in her mind.

"You protected me. With your wings." It wasn't really a question.

"Yes." Lucifer's voice was soft, pained. "Chloe Decker. Protected by an angel's wings, the mark of Father's grace, and avenged by the Devil himself."

Chloe let her fingers ghost across one wound, not touching, but close enough to feel the warmth in them. "Do they hurt?"

"Most wounds hurt until they heal." He paused. "They are healing. It simply takes time."

Chloe stared at the spots marring the white. She'd been shot, she knew how much it hurt. And she knew he'd been shot, that he'd known, when he protected her, how much pain he would suffer. And yet, he'd endured, even endured flying on those broken, bleeding wings, for her.

"Why?" She knew, but now...now she needed to hear it, as she hadn't a few minutes prior.

"Because...Chloe..." His voice cracked under the strain. "Because even the Devil can love."

She turned in his arms to look in his eyes. "You…."

"Yes."

She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. "How long?"

"Since the first time I saw you fall. Didn't want to admit it, didn't understand it then. Since I tried to seduce you and you refused me, since you offered me drunken sex because you were hurting, and I refused you. Since I went to save your daughter from the monster my brother created." His face twisted, pain sweeping across it. "I can't put a timeline on it. I only know that it is true." A bitter, painful smile tried to creep across his face, but failed.

He stepped away, turned away, wings curling tight against him. "You...You confound me. The first person whose respect I actually _cared _about earning. And when you fell for Pierce...I wanted to hate him. Wanted to hate you. And then, I realized I wanted you to be happy. Even if it meant I could never be more than your friend. Ever. Even if it meant..." His words stopped, jaw snapping shut. Then, soft and anguished. "Even if it meant I had to watch you give your heart to another. Unworthy of you, and yet...a better man than I, if only because he _was _a man. Not the Devil in a man's form, not a fallen angel, caught between damnation and redemption." Hands pressed into the bar-top, his head bowed against the weight of his own words.

There was so much she couldn't process in those words. She swallowed, trying to make sense of the words, and spoke the first thought she could latch onto. "You never said..."

"That I cared for you?" He whipped around, and now the bitter smile was there, sharp and hard and dangerous, like one of Maze's blades. "Oh, Detective..."

Cold bitterness flared in his eyes. "Would you have believed me? If I told you? Told you that I..." He choked on the words. "I have never lied to you. But you...you, Detective…." He swallowed hard, the motion of his throat visible. "You have never believed anything I told you. Not about the things that matter. About the things that make me who and what I am."

Chloe opened her mouth to deny it, then stopped.

He was right. She never _had_ believed him. Not about being the Devil. Not about his Father, or his brother, or about Maze. Even after they'd become friends, and she'd stopped thinking of him as just a delusional, narcissistic, egomaniac with an odd talent for hypnotism, she'd never believed that he was the Devil. The real Lucifer Morningstar.

And she wouldn't have believed him if he'd said he loved her before. She would have thought it was just another twist in the game, another quirk. Another ploy to get her into his bed. She'd have dismissed him, the way she'd dismissed most of his other claims, or even – and now she was ashamed of it – the evidence of her own eyes.

She'd dismissed the trick with the bullet, when people who were supposed to be shot were suddenly out of the line of fire, somewhere else completely, when she hadn't seen them move. She'd dismissed the real shock on his face when she'd shot him. Not shock that she'd fired, she remembered now, but surprise that it hurt, that it bled. She'd dismissed it when he'd tried to show her his real identity before, in the police station, leaving in disgust and refusing to acknowledge that he'd expected something to happen, that he'd been visibly shaken by what _hadn't_ occurred.

She'd gotten used to the idea that the 'desires' thing was real. But it had never occurred to her to question whether or not that meant he was telling the truth about the source of it.

And if he'd said he loved her, she would have thought it was some new trick to get to her. Or, after Pierce had arrived and they'd grown closer, to get between them and prevent her from having a relationship with someone else. Playboy didn't even begin to cover his reputation, and she wouldn't have believed he'd changed if he'd told her so. In fact, she might not even if she'd had the physical evidence of forbearance in front of her.

And even if she had believed him, would she have listened? She wasn't sure.

She swallowed hard, looking into his dark, pained eyes. "You're right. I wouldn't have."

Lucifer flinched away from the words. He looked like he was about to run, or fly, off into the night, so Chloe stepped forward and grabbed his arm before he could. "Lucifer..."

He turned back to her, pain and grief and ageless anguish in his eyes. She hadn't been sure what she'd say when she grabbed his arm, but seeing that expression in his usually arrogant 'devil-may-care' face gave her the courage she needed.

"You're right. I wouldn't have believed you before. But that..." She took a deep breath. "That was before. And right now...I believe you. About everything." She reached up to touch his face, the stubble on his jaw and the wild hair that tumbled over his brow. "Everything. Who you are, your brother, your father..." And that was going to take some getting used to. His father was _God_, and they apparently had a poor relationship, one that made him both furious and paranoid. "...your mother..." The goddess of all creation, who had once inhabited the body of Charlotte Richards. "I believe you about me. And I believe you when you say you have feelings for me."

"I have feelings for a lot of people, Detective. What I feel for you..." His voice cracked.

"I know." She took a deep breath. "I don't...I don't know how I feel about you, Lucifer. I know that's not what you want to hear...no wait, hear me out." She tightened her grip on his shirt, and he stilled in her grasp. "I don't...there's just so much I have to get used to knowing about you. And this whole thing with Pierce...I really did care for him. I need some time to get over that. But...I care for you too, Lucifer. As your friend, definitely. And I just want…I'm asking you to give me some time to figure out the rest of it."

She looked into his dark eyes. "Can you do that? Give me some time while I figure out everything, wrap my head around...all of this?"

"I have all the time in the world, Detective."

"Chloe." She wanted him to use her name, to ease some of the distance between them.

"Chloe. If you wish me to wait, then wait I will." He raised a hand, warm and trembling slightly, to touch her face. "I don't – I was furious when I discovered that my Father had placed you in my path. But now, even if this is some plan of his, some manipulation, I...I would still rather be a part of your world than not. Despite all my attempts to believe otherwise."

She blinked. His attempts… "Candy?"

"Yes. And the – the thing with the diva, and the whole attempt to get you out of the spotlight."

She frowned. "You were..."

"Trying to protect you, yes. I thought that, since Father had a hand in your existence, that any feelings you had for me, friendship or otherwise, were a manipulation. A ploy. A trick to control me. I couldn't let you be used like that."

A month ago, she would have brushed it off as a lame excuse and walked away in disgust. But now, knowing what she knew...well, it wasn't really that far-fetched, was it? His father was God. Anything was possible.

She shivered. "You know, I'm kinda getting where that whole paranoia thing is coming from now."

"Quite." There was a glimmer of amusement in his eyes for a moment, but then it faded. "Detective...Chloe..."

She put a hand up to stop his speech. "Look, I don't care if this is some grand plan or manipulation. I just want to...to try, you know? I don't know what's going to happen, but I want to see where we go from here. So...can we just do that, and not worry about your father for once?"

"Easier said than done. However, if it pleases you..." A rakish grin flitted over his face. "I shall do my best."

She smiled back in response. "Good. Me too." She looked over his shoulder at the wings still tucked behind his back. "So...if we're going to do this, I have a lot of questions. About..." She waved a hand at his general profile. "...everything."

"Everything, Detective?" He arched a brow at her, his earlier melancholy displaced by a mask of cheerful innuendo. She was certain it was only a mask, that all the hurt she'd seen couldn't have vanished that fast, but she was content to let him have it.

She wasn't sure she could cope with all the emotions buried in his heart. The hurt and grief and fury of millennia. But she could handle this. And maybe, if she was careful and paid attention, really listened to him, she'd be able to find ways to work with that part of him she'd never really believed existed before two weeks ago.

She returned his smirk with an exasperated huff, a smile and a slap on the shoulder. "You know what I mean. Besides, I don't have to ask about_ that_. Been there, seen it."

"But you haven't played with it yet, darling." The smirk widened.

"Yeah, well...maybe after you tell me about those..." She pointed at the wings. "And...the other thing too." She waved a hand over her face.

"Well, if you insist." He sighed, then turned back to his bar. "Drink?"

"Sure." She might as well. She had a feeling this was going to be a long conversation. She was also pretty sure that it was going to be a hard one to cope with, if both, or either, of them were sober. "Whatever you're having."

"Scotch then." He poured two glasses, handed one to her. "Cheers, Detective."

"Cheers." She sipped with him, breathing through the smooth burn at the back of her throat.

She had a lot of questions, but at least it felt like things were beginning to settle back into their proper places. She wasn't going to pretend that she wouldn't end up shocked or surprised by anything else, and she wasn't going to pretend that this was easy, or that whatever else he might tell her would be any easier to handle than what she already knew, but….

Knowing the truth wasn't so bad, as long he was still her friend. And no matter what else came of this conversation, she was pretty sure she'd remain his friend as well. And for now, that was enough for her.

_**Author's Note**__: Wrote this before Season 4 came out. So it might not be completely true to that. But they needed to have this conversation._


End file.
